


Olim

by Amemait, LaceFedora



Series: PenPals Universes [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 12:25:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19790857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amemait/pseuds/Amemait, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaceFedora/pseuds/LaceFedora
Summary: The bedtime story from LaceFedora to me which started this selection of alternate universes.





	1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time, Enabran Tain decides that little Elim needs to leave Cardassia for the first time. Mila doesn’t like it, but Enabran does what the fuck he wants and little Elim is _thrilled_ to be going on a trip with Uncle Enabran.

The trip is unfortunately horrifically boring. Elim is used to his Uncle constantly testing him and making up little lies and puzzles, but he’s too busy this time.

So, being a precocious age of say, twelve, he decides to wander off on the planet that they’re on (Babel.)

He comes across a human boy, maybe half his age… he looks a bit gangly, like growing pains are hitting him quite hard. Cardassian schools tell all sorts of ridiculous lies about humans and any other species that’s not Cardassian really. Garak knows they’re lies, but to be fair, he’s never actually met a real human before.

The boy’s quiet, sitting by himself, not playing, just sitting. He has a small PADD that he seems to be typing on. Garak’s bored enough to come over and ask what he’s doing.

“Writing to my aunt,” he says, and looks up at him, too-large eyes blinking at him.

“I don’t have an aunt,” Elim says. He should really learn Standard – it would be better to know more languages without the UT.

“Well, I have one… I’m asking her if I can stay with her.”

“Why do you want to stay with her?”

“So my parents will stop moving me.”

The way he says it makes Garak smile, but at the same time… he understands the feeling. This trip… he’d been excited at first, but it was better sometimes with his Mother and Father, when Uncle Enabran isn’t expecting him to rise above his station. Garak comes and sits beside him. “Why do you think they move you?”

“…They’re scared.”

“Ah. That, I can understand,” Garak nods.

The boy smiles at him, seeming relieved he doesn’t have to explain more than that. Garak finds he’s smiling back.

“Do you like riddle?” Garak asks him, and the boy brightens up immediately. They spend the next hour telling each other riddles, trying to suitably translate them from context of their respective planets. It’s fun… more fun than Garak can remember having in a long time.

The boy’s parents find him before Uncle Enabran notices that Elim has even gone missing. The way the boy flinches when his father speaks makes Garak angry, but he knows better than to try to say anything.

“Goodbye,” the boy says, and offers him a smile. “Thanks for the riddles. I’ll use them. My name is Jules.”

“I can’t tell you my name. It’s another riddle,” Garak says, and Jules just smiles at him. He takes the boy’s PADD, and types the riddle out in phonetic Kardasi.

The boy’s father drags him away but Garak finds he thinks of him for a long while afterward. He goes back before Enabran notices he was gone. He would _not_ be spending the trip back in any storage closets if he could help it. He hoped the same was true for Jules.


	2. Chapter 2

Julian groans and rolls out of bed, hearing his com station chiming. "Who in the hell could be calling me so late?" He wonders then tells the computer to patch it through, tired enough not to notice that the computer doesn't actually tell him who the call is from. he hasn't seen Garak in person since the first time they met, yet he recognizes him immediately. He stares, at a loss for words.

Garak takes a breath, and then another. He's damned sure his encrypt is solid. If it weren't they'd failed in their teachings.

Julian looks weighed down by something.

"Mila said you'd left several messages?”

"I...." Julian swallows and stares at him. "It's really you." he says quietly. " 'Several messages' was your mother being kind..." He manages. "there are... I've written many letters..."

“She explained where I was,” Garak says softly, his voice thick with remembered dust.

Technically, Cardassia and the Federation are about to be at war. He can feel it in the air, in the way Tain's been reading reports, in the reports he's read which were clearly redacted.

It's why he had to call tonight.

"She is very secretive about Cardassian practices, but she told me you were at School and it would be impossible to contact you for several years." Julian swallows again. "I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again, I stopped sending the letters. I didn't want to get Mila in trouble..." He says. She had been so kind to him, with tensions rising between Cardassia and the federation he didn't want her to be found with anything form him. It hurt, but Julian had already been withdrawing from everyone else in his life...

"I needed to see you. Before our worlds collide in ways they shouldn't. Julian..." Using his given name feels forbidden. Using anybody's name feels forbidden still.

“I'm glad you hadn't forgotten me.” Julian says and offers him a smile, feeling genuinely touched... he really hadn't let himself entertain the possibility that he's gotten to heard from him again. He knew he couldn't reach out... Garak would figure it out... how could he ever hide it from Garak? He's always been so clever.

Garak looks aside. "You're still a civilian. And a minor, where you are. If you were caught with such from me, you should be safe as a Federation citizen. Would you like to... resume our correspondence?"

Julian stares at him, swallowing hard. he wants to very much. "I've missed talking with you more than I've ever missed anything in my life... I just-I don't know if I'm who you think I am, Garak." He says, voice a bit broken.

"I don't know much about who I am anymore either," Garak states bluntly. "I can teach you how to encrypt our messages if you need to. And this is as secure a channel as I could make it."

Julian's horrified to find a few tears falling down his face. He wipes at them hastily. He should turn him down. He finds he can't... couldn't he leave himself just one thing? He's put everything away with the name Jules. it so often felt like everything had been taken. "I'd like to continue our correspondence..." He says.

"Julian?" Elim's voice is very soft. "Julian I've no intention of letting what's coming come between us and our friendship."

Julian smiles at him a few more tears falling. "I don't intend it to either you're my on- you’re my oldest friend..." he just barely stops himself saying 'only'. that was a bit desperate, wasn’t it, a person he hadn't talked to in nearly a decade... "but I have been accepted to Starfleet medical, if you feel you need to know that." He prayed that they never ended up on opposite sides of a battle.

"How soon?" Garak hisses, Kardasi. He's read every one of Julian's letters, he knows Julian's been learning his tongue.

“B _eginning of next year_ ” Julian returns, his Kardasi was a bit stiff, since he'd mostly learned in through reading. Picking up such a difficult language so quickly should have been another hint for him. “ _I’ll be in medical school a long time._ ”

"I'll teach you to encrypt, Julian. Do not cry because our States might well march against one another. Battle and war are fleeting. We'll see each other again." Mixing idiom like that was... well.

Battle and war are fleeting; the state is eternal. We'll see each other again; I will offer you such kindness as I may.

“I'm not crying because of that... I'm sorry.” Julian says and wipes his face again. he couldn't quite seem to stop. “I'm sure we could both act professionally were we to meet in battle.” he tells him. He'd mostly gotten used to swallowing his tongue, to not saying anything, why did he find himself wanting to confess to Garak? They barely knew each other anymore.

“You're my only friend, I'm sure I'd find an excuse to have you kept safe were you to become our prisoner. And you'll be a Doctor, you'll be allowed to ensure prisoner safety were I captured.” Elim tries to keep his tone light, and fails. “Can I help with the weeping?” he offers eventually.

"I'd make sure you were treated well." He hiccups a little. “I’ve written you so many times Garak... the last couple of years I've written and deleted them." Julian says, they were his way of venting for a while. he knew he couldn't keep them or send them.

"Elim, Julian, please," Elim offers. "I've read all you sent Mila, for me."

Julian flushes. and looks back at him. "Elim..." He says a touch reverently, he knew Cardassians kept their first names close. "Thank you." He says. "I have some more of them... for a few years after that." he tells him. He's just been deleting the ones since he put things together at fifteen.

"Julian, what's wrong? Tell me?" It's not a very good interrogation technique, he knows.

His shoulders sink and he looks down at his hands. "I'm sorry I’m worrying you. I just feel like an -How... how secure is this channel?"

"As secure as I could make it, and I raided Uncle Enabran's technology to set it up. If he discovers, I'll say I was testing a new encrypt."

"If I... if I tell you. this can't be intercepted, Elim." Juliann says earnestly. "It would be the end of everything... but it would be safer than writing it down..."

Garak nods. "It'll not be, Julian. You know how Uncle Enabran is about is his secure channels."

Julian looks down at his hands and laughs a little, breathless. He wipes at his face. Garak could destroy him with this, his parents. Julian finds that even if he did... it would be a relief. "I'm not..." Julian takes a breath and then looks back at him. "I wasn't a very bright child." He says and looks back at him. "Slower and smaller... When my classmates were learning to read and write I was still trying to tell a dog from a cat. I was a great disappointment to my parents... When you met me, I had recently returned from a long stay at a hospital... that's a relative term..." he shifts.

Elim tips his head, and waits. This could be large, or nothing.

“They changed me...” Julian says, “It took me a long time to figure out... but a little before I turned seven, they took me to Adigeon Prime... 'treated me' _accelerated critical neural pathway formation,_ “ He adds. “They had me genetically enhanced.” He says. "It took months... the treatments were terrifying... but my parents they were so happy every time I came out a little brighter... a little quicker... My father he just kept coming up with new things for them to add... to change. in the end it was only my name that was the same." Julian's tears are still falling though he was calming a bit, he reaches out, touching the monitor. It felt good to tell someone, but he kept feeling the jolt of panic at saying it aloud. “I'm afraid you never knew the real Julian Bashir.”

“I've known you, whoever you are, my dear future doctor.” Elim reaches back to him. “And such has been my honour and privilege. I do not care less for my friend because of this revelation. I merely wonder what to name him.”

Julian stares at him then leans in closer. "I'm not even sure I'm real... I'm certainly illegal." He admits to him. "And the only name I have to give you is Julian."

“Then Julian you are, my friend. Not Jules?” He checks softly, then the words catch up to him. “...illegal? Because of me? Surely that's too soon.”

Julian flinches. "No... Not Jules... My parents replaced Jules. I'm not illegal because of you... I am because of what they did. Genetic enhancements are banned in the federation. If anyone knew, I'd be barred from service in Starfleet, from medicine entirely... I'd likely taken to an institute."

“That's absurd,” Garak hisses, the Kardasi rendering the word into an insult to rhyme with atrocity. “You are who you are, and you intend to serve your state, and those genetic changes are what allows you to do so in a most productive manner -becoming a Doctor is a fine thing, Julian. To declare you otherwise, especially because of decisions not taken by you, is the immorality.”

Julian blinks, surprised at the defence. He switches back to Kardasi. "That's not how they see it... A few hundred years ago genetic engineering nearly destroyed the human race. Augments are barred from professions where they might try to get a foothold on humanity again.

"Your state is not very enlightened you should come and join mine," Elim deadpans.

"Your state doesn't think fondly of non-Cardassian, dear Elim." Julian points out, but he's smiling now and no longer crying.

Elim stares at him, and then- "I think Uncle Enabran is my father."

Julian pauses and blinks a few times, remembering what he's learned about Cardassian society. "But didn't claim you... Though that could explain some of Mila's evasiveness about why you were sent to school so abruptly..."

"Since we're confessing our parents’ sins," Elim whispers. "Yes. Though part of that would be that my intake day was the day after my birthday, which could easily be coincidence." He bends forward, his emotional reaction to speaking this aloud like a physical gut punch. "My state doesn't think much of illegitimate children either, Julian, no doubt why fa- Tolan says I'm his. But Julian... They taught me more about how to observe while I was gone. More about how to watch. Julian our hands and ridges and mannerisms are the same. I look like he did when he was younger."

Julian studies him closely. "Perhaps. But Tolan is the one who raised you... Who loved you. Isn't that true?" He offers. "Enabran... He's tried to control your future here, by sponsoring your education." Julian frowns. He could remember how much Garak had looked forward to learning Tolan's trade.

"Yes." Elim sighs, and it rumbles in his chest. "Would you like to learn how to cipher our correspondence now?"

"I'd like that." Julian smiles at him. They could both use the distraction from this flood of emotions.


End file.
